10 THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



parts of the body tend to become white, according to the amount of 

 fat which is being taken from these parts, depending, of course, on the 

 amount of fat which has been stored up in these various parts, and the 

 circulation of blood through them. It should be recognized that all 

 yellow-color changes are dependent on the feed, the coarseness of skin, 

 and the size of the bird. A large bird fed on an abundance of green feed, 

 or other material that will color the fat deep yellow, will not bleach out 

 in color in these various parts as quickly as will a smaller bird, or one 

 which naturally has pale yellow colorings. The changes occur in the 

 following order: 



Vent. The vent changes very quickly with egg production, so 

 that a white or pink vent on a yellow-skinned bird generally means 

 that the bird is laying, while a yellow vent means that the bird is not 

 laying. 



Eye Ring and Ear Lobe. The eye ring, that is, the inner edge of 

 the eyelid, bleaches out a trifle more slowly than the vent. The ear 

 lobes of Leghorns and other white-lobed varieties bleach out a little 

 more slowly than the eye ring, so that a bleached ear lobe means a 

 longer or greater production than a bleached vent or eye ring. 



Beak. The color leaves the beak beginning at the base and gradu- 

 ally disappearing until it leaves the front part of the upper beak. The 

 very tip of the beak is usually white before the bird is making eggs, 

 and should not be confused with the loss of pigment due to produc- 

 tion. A very small ring just on the crest of the curve of the beak is 

 often the last part of the beak to lose its color. The lower beak bleaches 

 faster than the upper, but may be used where the upper is obscured 

 by a horn, or black color as in Rhode Island Reds and Plymouth Rocks. 

 On the average-colored yellow-skinned birds, and on the average-sized 

 bird, a bleached beak means fairly heavy production for at least the 

 past four to six weeks. 



Shank. The shanks are the slowest to bleach out, and hence in- 

 dicate a much longer period of production than the other parts. The 

 yellow color leaves the outer ring of the scales, then leaves the entire 

 scale, on the front of the shanks first, and finally, after a longer and 

 greater production, leaves the scales on the rear of the shanks. The 

 scales on the heel of the shank that part of the shank just below the 

 back of the hock-joint are the last to bleach out; and for this reason 

 may generally be used as an index as to the natural depth of the original 

 yellow color of the various parts of the bird. A bleach ed-out shank 

 on an average-sized bird with an average yellow color, indicates that 

 the bird has been laying fairly heavy for at least from 15 to 20 weeks. 



Reappearance of Pigment. When the bird stops laying, the yellow 

 color comes back into the vent, eye ring, ear lobes, beak, and shanks 

 in the same sequence as it left, but the color returns much more quickly 

 than it went out. 



A vacation or rest period can sometimes be determined by the 

 end of the beak being bleached and the base being yellow, or a longer 

 vacation or rest can be determined by the shanks being pale or some- 

 what bleached and the beak showing a fair amount of yellow pigment. 



In other words, if the degree of yellow color in a bird gradually 

 increases in density, from the vent to the eye ring, to the lobe, to the 

 base of the beak, to the point of the beak, and to the shanks, it shows 



